


Re-Turn

by mydeira



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-26
Updated: 2012-10-26
Packaged: 2017-11-17 02:12:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/546494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydeira/pseuds/mydeira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Donna Noble reaches a crossroads.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Re-Turn

“Mum, I thought you said you were going to the market,” Donna called out as her mother reached the end of the driveway.

“I am.” Sylvia smiled, waving her bag.

“What are you doing walking then?” The woman never walked to the mail drop if she could help it.

“Donna, I’ve been walking ever since—” She’d been doing that a lot lately, freezing in mid-sentence, then trying to pass it off like nothing at all. “It’s such a waste to run the car such a short distance. Like the mayor says, we all need to do our part.”

Right. “It’s supposed to rain. Let me drive you.” Not giving her the chance to protest, Donna ducked inside and grabbed up her keys, happy to find her mother already in the car when she got back outside. The happiness quickly faded, though, because it was just one more weird behavior Sylvia had picked up since—Donna frowned—since that day everyone went ‘round the bend, claiming there were strange planets in the sky and the Earth had moved and whatever else. And people thought she was daft.

“A little rain wouldn’t have hurt me.”

Donna looked at her mother, then shook her head and started up the car. “Some days it feels like I’m the only sane one around anymore.”

“People change,” her mother said lightly, but it sounded forced.

“Not that much,” Donna muttered as she back down the driveway. “Not you.” But her mother had changed. No more long-winded lectures on Donna going out and getting a proper job, a proper bloke, a proper life. Mum was actually nice to her. Made up for Grandad avoiding her. It was all just so weird.

But her mum didn’t say anything in response and they drove in blissful silence until the rain started.

Donna smirked. “Told you, didn’t I?”

“It’s not like I would melt.”

Rolling her eyes, Donna slowed the car to a stop at the intersection, tapping the indicator to signal right. Her skin prickled with goose bumps and she felt rather ill suddenly.

“Donna?”

The market was just down the street, a few short blocks, to the right. She’d driven her mum there dozens of times, driven herself there dozens more. Heck, she could drive there blindfolded and in her sleep. Just turn right, that’s all she had to do.

“Donna?” Her mum sounded so far away.

The indicator clicked in time to the pounding in her head, steady and persistent.

Turning right would be…bad. Donna Noble didn’t have premonitions. She read her horoscope but didn’t believe the stars had any more control over her destiny than the wind. But deep down she knew turning right would be bad. No, not would be, had been. One time she’d turned right and the world went wrong. Such a silly, simple choice made by a nobody like her wouldn’t make a dent in traffic patterns let alone in what the future held.

The pain ratcheted up another notch. Pound, pound, pound. She gripped the steering wheel tight enough to make her knuckles pop.

Once upon another life she had turned right when she should have turned left, had turned left before but—

Light flashed, brilliant and golden, more blinding than a thousand suns. On fire…burning up from the inside out…molten…

“Can’t turn right right right right right right—” Donna clenched her jaw shut, cutting off the words and trying to fight down the rising panic. Ice cream ice cream ice cream… Poor Miss Evangelista, never given half a chance, eaten by shadows for taking a wrong turn.

Distantly she felt a hand settle on her arm, shaking her, trying to get her attention.

Pepper pots and volcano creatures and squid men and ice and fire and running, always running through air turned to poison by evil potatoes and Agatha Christie and a wedding with spiders and the beginning of the world and space and time and running and running and running…

The pain stopped but the world kept turning. Really turning. In her bones she could feel the vibration, like a distant hum. Why hadn’t she ever noticed it before?

She had missed so much…lost so much.

Releasing the wheel, she turned to her mum with a reassuring smile. “It’s all right, Mum.” And not in the Time Lord sense. Donna Noble said what she meant. “Everything is finally all right.”


End file.
